The Painter and The Model

[helgi]

This way comes an innocent few,

Knelt of Nature's loveliest pew,

One is a Painter pure,

The other a Model kind,

Even now she follows her sir,

Leaving her dress behind!

Now they look,

And now they search,

By lovely a brook,

For a posing perch;

'Halt!' said the Model,

'Before a foot we further go,

Harken how me legend goes,

None can paint me, Who yet have tried,

From the front nor from the side,

Never can my body surrender,

Till lovingly, first, my body is rendered,

By loving a hand that holds the brush,

That strokes for love to win my crush,

By the paint, I'll truly see,

If love is what you have for me!

Now listen, dear, the day is young,

I've yet to see my picture hung!

Forward march! ;

'Vouchsafe, my Lady, grant me pleasure to halt,

And charge you, your beauty, with one single fault,'

'A fault?' Cried the Lady, in figure so proud,

'A fault, 'fore a Lady, is spoken too loud!'

'No fault in front, but only behind,

A background, my Lady, is what I have in mind,

For how shall we search, and where shall we find,

Nature to equal your beauty in kind?'

'Ah,' said the Lady, 'I see what you mean,

How lucky the branches that find me between,

Shall I, me endure, the enviouse pride,

Of any fair creature that sits me beside?

A setting, one fair, seems highly in order,

Hasten we, then! Find me proper a border!'

And so they searched for a posing perch,

The Painter proposing one perch after perch,

Till he bended knee, as proposed in a church,

And begged, 'Be done we with our search!'

But the model was choosy, she wanted the best,

Like so lovely a she-bird who chirps for a nest,

And of women, it seems, Be they naked or feathered,

Like a nest made of sticks, So stick they together!

And so she paced, in a semi-round,

In a lovely place the two had found,

But still she wouldn't stand she still,

At least, she wouldn't, not until,

'To me it seems, quite hardly fair,

That you in your clothes, and I in the bare,

When such a dress we both could share,

That is, we both, could both be bare!'

The painter blushed and tried to beg,

To keep his pants upon his legs,

'My Lady, it seems you're quite mistaken,

Only the Model is meant to be naked!'

'But why should I, on a day so hot,

Be so naked, when you should not?

I find, that when hot, the only escape,

Is leap far from your clothes, and show off your shape!

'Throw down your brushes and toss off your clothes!

For then we'll both have said hello!'

And so we see, that a day well spent,

Can have no picture to represent